


tears and joy

by Li (Lies_And_Distraction)



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: ...with... happy................... sort of, Gen, ludger's end, someone help the kresnik family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 16:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11650026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lies_And_Distraction/pseuds/Li
Summary: There's only one thing missing.





	tears and joy

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings in the end notes, if you want to check them. I won't be more specific up here than to say the things that might be triggery are psychological in nature. it's a pretty chill/...mostly lighthearted fic on the surface. it's just, the Kresniks are not the, uh, healthiest people. probably because the universe hates them. stay safe, and please tell me if I need to warn for something/in more detail than I already have in the end notes.
> 
> Latest revision: Oct 27, 2018. When I first posted this fic, it was 5(.5?)k. with all the revisions I've done... 7k. I've worked the kinks out of most of the places I still thought were Wrong. will be back to change more eventually, I'm sure.
> 
> these kids hurt my soul. I love them. /clenches fist

Ludger rubs his eyes with a sigh, leaning back in his chair. He's pretty sure it's not healthy to stare at a screen for five hours straight, day after day, but he supposes it comes with the territory. He'd expected a plethora of paperwork, but there's less of that than emails and digitized reports. Most of the physical papers he has end with lines marked with an 'x' at the bottom.

"You keep it up, you're gonna need glasses soon, just like me," Julius says, setting the paperweight he'd been tossing around back on Ludger's desk. His eyes crinkle a little with his smile.

"You're welcome to help out," Ludger says, casting him a dry look, and stands to stretch his back. "You're really the one who should be president, anyway. The first time I walked into this building, I heard 'Julius this,' 'Julius that'- they love you. I really have no qualifications to be here at all."

"And yet you've been doing spectacular work. When's the last time you heard someone question your right to be here?" He pauses for emphasis, and takes Ludger's silence as his win. "And you even have groupies now, just like I used to."

Ludger flushes a little, pulls his arm across his chest and stretches it to give him a reason to look away. "We both know Vera's the one who does most of the work. I just shake hands and sign things."

"'We both know' that's not true," Julius chides. He steps around the desk and goes to stand in front of the wall-length window, looking down on Trigleph. "You don't give yourself enough credit." Ludger opens his mouth to respond, but Julius continues, "Maybe that's a good thing, though. What a poor brother I'd be if I'd raised you to have a big ego." He flashes Ludger a smirk.

"Who could have a big ego with you for a brother?" Ludger asks wryly. He bends down and touches his toes. His knees give a little and his muscles protest; he needs to spend more time being active. Needs to remember to stretch when he cools down. Too much time at a desk is driving him crazy, anyway. "If I end up needing glasses, at least I've gone a lot longer than you did. You've had them as long as I can remember." Maybe he should take a bunch of short stretch breaks. Those are supposed to be good for you, right?

"I ought to have given in and gotten them sooner, but I can't say I was eager to wear them," Julius admits. "They weren't exactly comfortable, and I hated how they looked on me."

And yet they've always suited him. All too well. Ludger tells him so, and Julius laughs. "Always nice to hear. Nowadays I like to think they give me a bit of intelligent charm I wouldn't otherwise have."

Ludger rolls his eyes. "Now who's not giving himself enough credit." He reaches over for the small stack of papers Vera had brought in earlier and shuffles through it. A complaint about one of their plants, budget requests Vera has already approved, a reminder for at least three different meetings next week... Nothing that needs his immediate attention. The computer flashes its screensaver. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

Julius takes a moment to think about it, then shakes his head. "You go ahead. I don't feel like dealing with crowds right now."

Ludger isn't sure he'll ever feel anything but vaguely queasy looking down at the streets from here, where everyone looks so tiny and insignificant (as if he, so elevated and removed from them, is larger than life and all-important- surely Bisley enjoyed the view), so he usually avoids looking out there; but a quick glance shows the manic death throes of the usual lunch hustle and bustle down at ground level.  
  
He understands Julius' hesitance, but his need for fresh air and a break outweighs his reluctance to deal with anyone who wants to pull him aside for a chat. "Okay. I'll see you in a bit, then." He tugs his suit jacket on- the same one he curses Julius for talking him into ('you need to look professional, this is an important job, you've got an image to present', fuck that); if he's the boss what does it matter- and buttons it up as he heads for the door.

He's about to close it behind him when he stops, calls back, "You should run down to the cafeteria while I'm gone. You've gotta be hungry."

"Yes, mom," Julius says, and Ludger closes the door on him.

Vera, a few feet away and holding more papers that he assumes are headed into his office, looks confused. "Who were you talking to?"

His thoughts aren't very well ordered right now, and for some reason he feels like Vera is the last distraction he needs to really throw his brain into chaos. He rubs the back of his head. "Nii-san. I'm going out, but he's staying here. Um, you tend to get pretty distracted by work, so if you haven't eaten yet, maybe you should, too. Grab a late lunch with Nova, or something."

"Oh." She looks at the door. "I... Yes, of course. I might do that." Her loss of composure, as always, is only momentary. "How long will you be out?"

Ludger shrugs. "Half an hour." Give or take. By the by, since she's there already, he adds, "I'm thinking of leaving early today."

Vera nods. "Understood." Hand on the doorknob, she says, "Perhaps that's a good idea."

"Say hi to Nova for me."

"Of course," Vera says.

* * *

"It's been a while since we've had a day like this, huh," Ludger muses, lowering his book a little. Julius sits across from him on the couch, supposedly watching the television Ludger has his back to (really, starting to doze off). Their legs are tangled together; it's rather comfortable, for the ways their knees are bent and intertwined. "Nothing urgent at work, no world saving," or destroying, "to do... Just you and me." He smiles, more towards himself than his brother. "I've missed this."

"Me too," Julius says solemnly, the weight of the world(s) in his eyes. Ludger wishes he had seen it Before. Wishes that he had gotten answers from Julius before shit hit the fan (how far back to go...?), that they could have been a team, instead of working against each other almost to the end. Maybe things would have turned out better then- not that they aren't all right now, but-  
  
It must be painted all over his face, his smile slowly slipping away, eyebrows pulling together.

"There's only one thing missing, huh," Julius says softly. He's always very careful when the topic of Elle comes up, like he's not sure he's allowed to even say her name (Ludger thinks he's ridiculous and bears more sins than he, himself, committed. Elle is not the first on the list and likely won't be the last).

"The three of us never hung out like this before, though," Ludger says, smiling softly. "I miss her. It's not as bad as it was, now, but... Sometimes I try to picture how much she'd have grown by now. It hurts."

"When you were her age, between eight and nine..." Julius strokes his non-existent beard. "I'm pretty sure you grew two inches, tops. You were the shortest in your class."

Ludger raises the book to cover his face. "I got this tall, at least. Eventually."

"My little brother, all grown up." There's a certain softness in his gaze, his tone. Ludger ducks his head.

"I guess we'll never know. About her."

"You'll still have this dimension's Elle. Soon enough, if I'm correct."

Ludger freezes. Takes a hand off the book, fidgets with his sleeve- stops fidgeting abruptly, so he can grab the book again, more firmly, and maybe stop broadcasting his every thought and mood at some point.

He's succeeded in thoroughly confusing Julius, whose eyebrows are drawn. "Ludger?"

It builds in his throat like a bubble, and then the bubble bursts. Not that it's, like, sudden altogether- he lays awake all the time thinking about it, and though that bubble has come and gone and urged him on now and again before, he has been too ashamed to bring it up, himself. This is close enough to Julius asking, right? Quickly, before he can think better of it, he says, "She wouldn't be my Elle. Not, I mean, not the Elle I know." Julius blinks at him. He continues. "I want to care about the Elle I'm supposed to father here, but she's not. My Elle. Won't be. I'm afraid I'd just see the differences between them and expect her to be the Elle I knew. But she can't be.

"And I don't even know Lara- her mother. I'm sure she's a good person; to put up with Victor she had to be- but am I really supposed to expect that things between us will go the way they did in Victor's dimension? I haven't even met her. I only know her name, and that she'd have a girl named Elle with me if we tried- but isn't that kind of creepy in and of itself? What kind of functional relationship starts with 'you don't know me, but I know the kid we'd have together'?"

Julius considers him with an unreadable look. "Do you not want that life? Not to get to know Lara, to be this Elle's father?"

Ludger closes his book and slowly sets it on the floor. After a moment, he asks, "Is that selfish of me? Is it wrong? ...If I don't marry Lara, Elle won't exist here. Won't exist ever again." The thought drives a wedge of panic through his heart. "But I just. I don't know. If I can do it. If I can't, it's like- like Victor, having his daughter right in front of him and wanting something else. I don't want to..."

"I don't think that's selfish," Julius cuts in. "I think it's practical. This world would be all the better for having a little girl like Elle in it again, but children know when they're not wanted." They both know that. "If you can't bear to see her, it may be better, for Elle's sake..." His face twists, and he doesn't finish his sentence. Ludger gets it. "Though, you know, maybe you'd change your mind when you see her for the first time. Fatherhood has a way of doing that... for most." Ludger doesn't respond. "As for Lara... you never know. Maybe you'll get along, if you give it a shot."

"Maybe," Ludger mutters to his hands.

Julius stares at him a little longer, then stands up. "Let's not waste our day off on worrying. Come help me pick out a board game; we'll see if I can still beat you at all of them."

Ludger skeptically slides off the couch and follows him to the cabinet, trying to shake off his anxiety and take the topic change for the gift it is. "You mean the ones we haven't played since I was twelve?"

"Fifteen," Julius corrects absently. "Remember? We played a few on your birthday."

He remembers. It had been a good point in the midst of some less good times.

Julius' finger hovers over the names on the game boxes as he reads them; just a bit closer and he'll leave a finger-shaped line in the dust that's gathered (Ludger adds it to the cleaning list, for whenever he finds the time).

There are approximately two dozen things he could say, just in direct response to that, but he settles for, "I'm pretty sure I was the one who won most of the time."

Julius waves that off. "I let you win. Most of the time."

* * *

"I gotta say... they are pretty cute," Alvin says reluctantly, arms folded, over by the wall. Ludger crouches down and reaches for the spyrites, laughing at him and his determination to stay cool and composed.

Ludger has seen Alvin fanboy before; he'll really go for it if he doesn't catch himself first. If he catches himself first, always striving to be Mr. Suave... well, it's always only a matter of time.

"As I said, they're the most recent prototypes," says Jude, scratching his cheek. "These guys are pretty small and manageable, and they're almost fully functional. There are just a few more bugs. I can demonstrate a few of their more useful capabilities for you now, but... for some things, the, uh. Power output. Is still a little unpredictable."  
  
The face Jude pulls at that makes him wonder what sort of trouble they've had; but he's technically off the clock, which means this is not a business call, and he is not obligated to learn any details Jude doesn't share of his own accord.  
  
"If all goes well, I might be able to have the papers for you next week. I know we've made everyone wait too long already." He crouches down in front of Ludger, on the spyrites' other side; one of the spyrites turns away from Ludger's fingers and takes a running leap at Jude's chest. He scrambles to catch it with a surprised squeak. "They're, uh," he stutters, "not going to do that usually. Probably. I think."

"It's cute," Ludger says. "People think it's cute when cats and dogs do it; why not spyrites?" It's been ages since Rollo was fit and energetic enough to pounce on him. Alas, the spyrite he's scratching under the chin seems to have no interest in imitating its friend. Jude is the one who's put all the labor into them, so it makes sense that they'd like him more than an over-dressed stranger.

It's kind of amazing in the first place, what Jude has accomplished. The spyrites have a measure of sentience to them that seems comparable to that of the small animals they bear resemblance to, something that makes them real despite their ties to functionality. He has no doubt that they'll see the possibility they met in Victor's dimension soon, spyrites companions of most everyone who wants one. The traces of individuality the spirits bring to the table will cause some people concern, initially; but there are just as many who will find it the most attractive aspect of the spyrites, for whom functionality would be more of a plus than a necessity, until spyrix technology has completely disappeared from public use.

"They're not pets, though," Jude says dubiously, stroking his spyrite's back.

"Would you rather people just think of them as tools?" Alvin asks, like he already knows the answer. Meanwhile, the flames of jealousy burn in his eyes (Ludger smirks. A matter of time.). "Most pets I know get treated pretty well. One in particular. One very fat pet in particular." He doesn't look at Ludger, but it's not like they don't all know exactly who he's talking about.

Ludger holds his hand out for the spyrite to climb onto. After a moment, it obliges. He picks it up. "Alvin, what would you name this one?"

"I wouldn't," he says flatly.

"Alvin, you name your guns. Your guns have names. You can name a spyrite." The spyrite looks back and forth between them, tilts its head curiously. It's inevitable. Alvin will give in.

"We haven't really given them names yet, so... I don't mind if you both name them," Jude offers. He stands with the other spyrite. "Well, actually, Balan's been calling them all sorts of names- it's just that none have stuck. And also it's Balan." Perhaps _because_ it's Balan. He holds the spyrite out to Alvin.

Alvin resists. His arms stay folded. His eyes stay locked on to the spyrite. Jude, seeming not to notice this at all, holds the spyrite out a little further.

Alvin breaks, takes it and brings it close to his chest. His eyes are sparkling. Ludger can see the sparks.

Success.

"I dunno, this one seems pretty excitable." He strokes its head with one finger. "When it comes to you. But I don't think you want me to name it Milla."

"Huh?" Jude, having just turned away, spins back around. If his face is a little red, Ludger politely pretends not to notice.

For once doing the same, Alvin muses, "I really suck at naming things, you know. If you know the things I've named my weapons, then you know I should not be doing this. You better take it back unless you want to call this thing shit like 'sock'."

"'Sock'?" Ludger asks, face twisting. His spyrite wiggles, and he looks down at it. It wiggles again. He lowers his hand and lets it jump off. It scuttles off, first to investigate the closest chair, then moving on to the wires taped out of the way by the wall.

"Shut up," Alvin says. "You're the one who put me on the spot. It looks like a sock, okay." Ludger raises an eyebrow. "If you want something nice, or meaningful, all I can think of is..." He looks sidelong at Ludger.

Jude finishes, softly, "Elle."

"Yeah."

Sadness trickles down Ludger's spine, but he smiles. "She'd like that." He watches the other spyrite investigate the walls. "I'd name this one Victor, then. Elle and Victor." That in itself brings him a kind of sadness, but it seems fitting.

"Victor?" Jude asks, eyebrows drawn. "Not..." Ludger waits for him to finish his thought, but he doesn't. Instead, he looks away.

"So!" Alvin says, too loud. "We were gonna have a little celebration tonight. You're coming, right, Ludger?" Elle in one hand, he strides over to throw an arm around Ludger's shoulder. "There will indeed be alcohol for people taller than five-foot-three; you can finally kick back after several long, hard weeks of all this bigwig shit they've got you stuck with."

Long used to being the butt of similar jokes, Jude protests, "I _am_ taller than that, Alvin." He takes Elle back. Alvin looks on sadly, as if he hadn't decided his own fate.

Ludger chuckles, grabbing his coat. "I would, but nii-san is expecting me home. It _has_ been a busy week. Tonight's the first real free time I've had in a while." He smiles at them apologetically.

Jude mouths something, brows furrowing, and takes a small step forward. "Ludger," he starts, and gets no further. Ludger catches Alvin shaking his head from the corner of his eye. Jude smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "See you next time, then."

"Keep me updated," he replies, looking between them. After a moment, he decides not to ask, to let them keep their secrets. Victor trots over to him. He bends down and scratches its head one more time. "If you need anything, just call."

It's not Jude, but Alvin who says, with a strange intensity, "You too. Anything. We've got your back."

Before a confused smile can even make its way to his face, Balan throws open the door and announces his return. Ludger high-tails it out of there.

* * *

The sun warms the streets, gentled by a tiny breeze. The weather isn't usually so amenable, even if it's been slowly getting nicer over the last year; hopefully it will continue its upward trajectory as Jude's spyrites turn the world around, but until then, stable weather isn't a hallmark of unstable ecosystems. Regardless, it's the perfect day to have a lunch date, if only Ludger weren't late.

He plops down heavily across from Julius, at a shade-protected table outside the restaurant. His brother looks at him with a raised eyebrow. It's a little more judgement than he wants to be subjected to right now. "Sorry I'm late," he says. "The meeting ran long, and then some of our department heads had things to complain to me about. Personally, one at a time."

Julius asks, eyebrow still arched, "Did you run here?"

Ludger knows for a fact his hair is in disarray. His clothes are a bit rumpled, too. He rolls up his sleeves. "I was pretty late already. I didn't want to be later."

"I'm all yours, however late you may be," Julius says blithely. "I admit, though, I ended up eating while I was waiting for you." He smiles, doing that sad thing with his eyebrows.

That's a little disappointing, but it's not really a big deal. "What's the food like here?" he asks, flipping through the only menu on the table.  
  
For ten years, Ludger did most of the cooking, and only rarely did they eat out; without the time for that since work ate his life, he's made quite a bit of progress going through the list of restaurants in the city. Some he will never, ever go back to. Some, he has returned to several times- enough to have tried everything on the menu (making mental notes that he will hopefully one day be able to use to recreate the dish) and then established a regular order after that. Many are nothing particularly special- just food, with no art or love put into it. 

"Nothing like yours, but decent enough." He still sounds wistful. "Our kitchen is going to get dusty."

"I'll clean it before then," Ludger murmurs, which is far from Julius' real point, but it's not like talking it out will change anything. He misses cooking, misses the time in the mornings he'd have with Julius before he took off, the times in the evenings when Julius would come home tired and grim, but brighten up when they sat down to eat. Those days weren't so long ago, but sometimes they feel an eternity behind him. It's hard to imagine them ahead, except perhaps very distantly.

A waitress steps outside to take his order, and he gives it, thanking her as she leaves. When he turns back to his brother, Julius is smiling at him. Ludger, not sure he wants to know why, ignores him.

"So, I was thinking. You did great work on the GHS, and I've seen your name on a dozen other projects in R&D. From what I've heard from others, it seems like you enjoyed that kind of work." He looks earnestly at Julius until Julius meets his eyes. "You can go back to doing that. No world destroying this time. No worries about the company."

Julius is silent. Contemplative. His eyes drift down to the tabletop; he raises a hand to his lips. "I've thought of that, to be honest," he says slowly. "It feels wrong, after all this time providing for you, for me to be mooching off of you... Taking no responsibility..." He trails off. He searches for words for a moment. "I've been thinking. I've never been good enough, no matter what it is I do-"

"That's not true," Ludger says, a little too loudly (the man across the street glares over at him), heart jumping into his throat because _wow_ this is not what he was going for, and he does not know how to handle it now that he has it. "You've always been good enough. More than good enough." He has a vague idea of what Julius thinks of himself, and knows that it's not great, which makes it pretty far from what Ludger thinks. How to knock some sense into his brother, when he neither noticed how large the problem was, nor did anything significant to help, within the last decade and a half?

Julius' smile is warm like the shining sun, gentle like the day's breeze. "Thank you for feeling that way. I don't understand how you can think so, knowing what you know now," Ludger makes a disapproving face, and Julius ignores it, "but it means a lot to me." He smiles for a moment longer, and then the smile falls. "I was trying to say, he would have expected me to become president of Spirius after him. To do any less would be another failure- and yet, even if I were to be president, I wouldn't be good enough. I wouldn't do nearly as well as you."

"Bullshit," Ludger says mutinously.

Julius chuckles. "So instead of trying and failing at what he would have me doing, or trying something for myself, I've been avoiding. Everything." He spreads his hands, then drops them. "Honestly, I had never really expected to outlive him- to live past Origin's Trial. I'd never thought about what I would want to do, what I could do, with freedom. I'm... still adjusting, I think."

"Take all the time you need," Ludger says firmly. "Let me take care of you now."

"How absurd," Julius mutters, but not without humor.

The waitress returns and sets Ludger's plate down in front of him. Once again, he thanks her, and she leaves.

It looks good enough. He had far worse at the place across the street. He picks up his fork. "Bisley can't do anything to you now, you know. Why do you care what he'd think of you?" There's some kind of history between them- he knew it the moment Bisley and Julius met on that train. He'd always pegged it for hatred, on Julius' part if not mutual- but at the same time, there had always been something more complicated about it.

Absorbed in his lunch as he is, he doesn't notice Julius stiffen at first- but when the silence stretches on, he looks back up. Julius won't meet his eyes.

Slowly, Ludger puts his fork back down. Complicated.

Months ago, he'd puzzled over some things written within company files for a short time, before dismissing them and getting back to something immediately important. Vera had already been doing nearly his entire job for him while he learned the ropes back then, and Julius had been... distant? It hadn't been a good time to ask anyone, so he left it alone. Those notes are much clearer now, if they mean that Bisley is the father Ludger never knew, that Julius never, ever wanted to talk about.

He raises his other hand to his head, slowly fingers the white amongst the black in his bangs. "Oh," he says softly. "I guess... some things make more sense now." In hindsight, there are approximately several hundred other hints that he completely overlooked somehow which point to the same thing. 

Julius looks vaguely guilty and doesn't say anything like 'don't get the wrong idea,' so Ludger must be right. He feels a bit lightheaded as Julius says, tightly, "I hate him. I hated him then and I hate him now. I don't care what he thinks of me."

"It's fine if you do. He was your- our- father, whatever he's done." He feels himself drift a bit, like he's not connected to this, like it's someone else moving his mouth. Truth be told, he doesn't even really hear what he says- he's already grasping for something else, buried somewhere in his memory. Cornelia was married to Bisley. The last Key died before Ludger was born. Two flowers for two graves. "We didn't have the same mother, did we?" Claudia, a sidenote, largely forgotten in the shadow of her sister.

Claudia? Is that his mother's name?

"I'm sorry," Julius says, sounding way too pained over something as simple as a lie, or withholding of the truth. He's always been like that.

"It's fine," Ludger says distantly, and would reassure him or perhaps call him an idiot except that this is something he's wondered his whole life, and he has to get the words out: "So your mother was the Key of Kresnik before Elle... Was mine Claudia?" He doesn't realize how much he also dreads hearing the answer until Julius nods, and then it's too late to say he doesn't want to know, after all. "...I don't remember anything about her. I don't remember her dying. I don't remember anything before living with you. I don't remember _anything_." He's thought about it before, hasn't he? He's asked- 

Before he can try again, Julius says, "I don't want to talk about it."

Like always. Now knowing half the things Julius has been through in life, Ludger decides to leave it once more. It's a struggle, now that the answers are _right in front of him_ , quite literally, but he has no desire to cause his brother any more pain. He methodically disengages his thought processes from that line of consideration. There is anger there, familiar paired with the abrupt endings of conversations like these, but for now, he knows enough.

"It doesn't matter, anyway." Ludger picks up his fork again. "You're the one who's always been there for me. Who my parents were don't matter." He takes a bite, chews, swallows. Looks up at Julius. "You must have your mother's hair."

"And our father's stone-cold eyes," Julius says softly.

Ludger shakes his head. "I guess I got his hair and my mother's eyes. Neither of those make me one of them. Your eyes don't make you him." He eats a little, then adds, "You're better than him. Much better than he ever was."

Julius shakes his head helplessly, but doesn't argue, whether for lack of words or for knowing Ludger isn't going to change his mind no matter what he says. Instead, he asks, "How's the food?"

"Decent, but nothing like mine."

* * *

Alvin feels like they're doing something wrong, gathered together in Leia's tiny apartment- him, Jude, Leia, and the those twins, Ludger's friends. He feels like they're keeping secrets, something that has always fucked him over, always. Maybe they are. At this point, he doesn't know what to think.

Vera sits across from him as primly as ever. "For several months, on occasion, I've heard him speaking in his office with no one around," she says. He wishes he felt as calm as she looks. "I assumed he was just reading or thinking aloud. Recently, I learned that he believes he's talking to former Dir- to his brother."

"Couple days ago at Jude's lab, when he left, he said he had to go home to Julius, like he's actually _there_ , waiting. Like he didn't notice anything wrong about that. I don't know, guys, it was some creepy shit." Alvin leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands dangling as limp and lifeless as his hope that one day the world will stop shitting all over him and his.

Leia says, voice hushed, "I've seen it too. The other day, I saw him talking to thin air on his way home. I didn't think much of it then, but I remember." She brings her fingertips to her lips, but doesn't start biting her nails, as is her familiar anxious habit; Alvin catches sight of the color on them and understands why. "He was smiling. I noticed because he was smiling. I don't know when it was that I last saw him smile like that."

"I've hardly taken my nose out of my work in months, and his texts weren't at all alarming, so I didn't know anything was wrong until the other day," Jude says, pained. "I mean, of course there are the obvious things, but this... How could we have missed this? Looking back, it's kind of obvious when he must have started," he hesitates, "whatever this is, but shouldn't we have noticed something between then and now?"

Alvin's no match for that kicked puppy look. He averts his gaze. "You mourn, you move on. We all figured he'd moved on. I'm pretty sure we were hounding him a lot more when he looked like he was one bad joke away from jumping off a building than when he started looking like he'd returned to the living." Leia nods. Jude lifts a shoulder halfheartedly.

Nova has been fidgeting in her seat since before anyone ever started talking. She finally speaks up. "I've been trying to get him out of his apartment every weekend. Sometimes he'll go with me, but first I always see this back and forth- well, the back or the forth, which one would Ludger be? the forth?- and I just. Kind of want to cry. He looks so happy when he's talking to... not-Julius. I'm afraid to say anything to him about it, so I've just played along." She looks down at her hands. "I should have said something to you guys at least, but..."

"Him being happy about it doesn't mean his delusions are a good thing," Alvin says. His fingers have been twitching for a cigarette for ages now. Too bad he quit smoking. Like, fifteen years ago. After one cigarette. "One of these days, his nice imaginary world is gonna come crashing down, and then he'll have to face reality all over again." It would have been nice to have gotten a heads-up from Nova, oh, around the first time she caught on, since the rest of them were so slow and blind, but it's whatever. No use getting annoyed with her, or wondering _what if?_

"I know, but does that give us the right to say anything to him?" Jude stares at the ground. Kid's the most empathetic thing Alvin has ever met, Maxwell help him. It tends not to do him any favors, and considering how tight he and Ludger are, how well they just _click_ , it's only gonna hurt him more here. "We already took his brother from him once..."

"Someone will burst his bubble, some day. Probably sooner, rather than later. Then what?"

"We'll have to be there for him, 100%," Nova says, mouth pressed thin. Her eyes glisten. "We're his friends. He lost people he cares about, but he still has us. We need to let him know he can lean on us."

"Good luck with that," Alvin says tiredly. He sits up, drags a hand through his hair. "I've seen this shit before. It's not pretty. A lot of people, when faced with reality, can't take it. Forget everyone else who loves them, forget therapy or anything else that's supposed to help. Some people don't have the will to recover."

"Ludger," Jude starts, and abandons the thought just as quickly.

Leia says, instead, "It was already so hard on him... Way worse than we thought." She clasps her hands together, as tightly as she can, judging by the white of her knuckles. "This isn't fair."

"None of it's fair. It's never been fair. Not for us," Alvin says, closing his eyes on the beginnings of a headache, "and certainly not for the Kresnik family."

"We can't just give up on him," Nova says, more weakly, and Alvin shoots her a weary look.

"I'm not saying give up. I'm saying be realistic. What's the right answer here? I'm struggling to see a good one. Can you imagine being so dependent on someone that you just," he spreads his hands, "keep them around, after they're gone? Not just remember them, carry something that reminds you of them, but pretend that nothing ever happened and they're still breathing? Like I said, you mourn, you move on. He took a couple steps backwards." He sits back again, not looking at any of the faces around him. Jude's is bad enough, pale and troubled with something Alvin can't quite parse and doesn't want to, right now.  
  
With a sigh, he continues: "We can send him to therapy and hope that goes well, or stick around and try to be his support group until and after his bubble bursts, or whatever else; but ultimately we can only do what he lets us. We can't make him let us in. Damn it, of course we'll do everything we can, but we can't give him the will to live if he loses it, without his mind playing tricks on him." He wishes that he were being dramatic, jumping to conclusions, but, well. The current evidence kind of speaks for itself, in his opinion- those weeks after Canaan, when they were afraid to even breathe on him wrong, the clear and (in hindsight) sudden change which they now know is due to the complete and utter rejection of what hurt him most. If he's wrong, he will be ecstatic about it, but he's pretty sure he's not wrong. "Just... keep that in mind." He rubs the back of his neck, all out of words.

"There's always a reason to live," Jude says, and Alvin guiltily thinks back to that mess with him and Leia. "If we can't help him find his, no one can. I believe we can, if we try." The confidence in his eyes is shaky, but he's done plenty with half as much determination, and done it spectacularly. He meets everyone's eyes and does a pretty good job of imparting sincerity to them all, like he'll inevitably try to pass it along to Ludger.

Alvin's not sure how much good he'll do, with his cynical approach to the matter and inability to do anything but fuck up the best of relationships, but certainly if anyone can do it, it's Jude. Jude and all the people who flock to him, the comrades he's picked up along the way.

He can't give up, not completely. Because Ludger is their friend, because they owe him a debt they can never repay, because the most qualified team is on the job.

* * *

It's been a while, but their apartment is finally, _finally_ clean again. Top to bottom. In the past, he'd been able to keep up with the cleaning and do laundry and cook dinner in time for Julius to get home, even during high school. The gap between school and Origin's Trial was filled with training, job searching (funny how he'd hoped for success, after the failures Julius too many times told him not to sweat, just for his success to also turn into a failure), and plenty of time to keep house.

Then came the Trial, and adult life. Adult life happens to include long hours at the Spirius Corp. office and lack anything else. Sometimes he gets nostalgic for days gone by.

Ludger wipes his forehead, looking around to make sure he didn't miss anything. Rollo strolls in through the cat door, without a care for Ludger's clean floor (luckily, he tends not to bring in dirt unless he's been around mud, and if he had been around mud, it would be immediately apparent. Ludger's floors thank him for his restraint.). He twines himself around Ludger's ankles, purring.

"Is it time to eat already?" Ludger asks him. Rollo meows. It's always time to eat in Rollo's world, but even in the human world, it's late afternoon- mealtime. Time flies, and such.

Grinning, Ludger puts the broom away and goes to fill Rollo's bowl. "Don't let nii-san feed you again when he gets back," he warns, as he taps the last of the food from the can. "It's not good for you to eat so much. I don't want to have to ground you both."

Rollo meows again, tail swishing once, twice. He then dismisses Ludger completely, shoving his face right into his bowl.

Ludger chuckles. "I guess I'm lucky you paid that much attention to me, huh." He doesn't get a response. It's no surprise. Rollo will remember him when it's time for chin scratches.

He's lying on his bed, texting Jude, when Julius gets home. It takes a knock on the doorjamb, which Julius is leaning against rather comfortably, to get his attention. He could have been there for twenty minutes, for all Ludger knows; he hadn't noticed a thing.

Ludger jumps, but quickly sits up upon seeing his brother. "Nii-san! Welcome home. I didn't hear you come in." His mouth curls around the words, 'did you have a nice afternoon?', but the look on Julius' face stops them before they leave his lips. Instead, he asks, "Is everything okay?"

Julius looks troubled, a little pensive. He pushes off the doorjamb and takes a few steps into Ludger's room. Ludger scoots over to make room for him on the bed. "You're twenty-one, you know," Julius says as he sits down.

Ludger waits for more, and then, when it doesn't come, says, "Yeah...?"

Julius eyes him fondly. "Most men your age don't want to be living with their brothers anymore."

"They're not me." Ludger's eyebrows slowly draw together. "I like living with you." He pauses, then, conclusion reached, asks, "Do you want me to move out?" He's been waiting for it for three years now, so he wouldn't be surprised, exactly. Plenty disappointed. Not surprised. It's not like he can't afford his own apartment, now, and this one on top of it. It makes sense for them to stay roommates- to Ludger, at least- but he's certainly equipped to go out on his own now.

"That's not it," Julius says, too surely to be a lie. "It's just..." He leans back on his hands. "People are going to talk."

Ludger's not sure what he expected. The uncertainty in his chest clears up. "I really don't care," he says. "They can say what they want. It's none of their business."

Julius looks him in the eye intently for what feels like a long time before finally smiling. "If you're sure."

"Of course," Ludger says, and then stills, but for picking at the hem of his pants. "Unless... You're twenty-nine. Most people would say it's weird _you're_ still putting up with _me_." He looks away. If he seemed to mind, Ludger would have worried about it more. But Julius has proven to be better at hiding things than Ludger thought- a secret around every corner. Sometimes Ludger wonders how much he _really_ knows his brother in the first place.

"It's not weird at all, for me. As long as you're happy."

"I am."

"You have to have noticed the looks people are giving you lately."

He has. His friends included. Even Jude has been looking at him askance for weeks- though, he has enough courtesy to try to hide it. Maybe Ludger should go ahead and tell him, flat out- in reply to his last, unanswered text, even, entirely unrelated though it is: 'by the way, I'm not sleeping with my brother.' As for the rest of the world, "It's none of their business," he repeats.

"If you're sure," Julius repeats, and leans over to press his lips to Ludger's forehead. He lingers there for a moment, and then stands.

Surprise stalls Ludger's thoughts almost entirely; then he thinks too quickly, all in a jumble, because if he doesn't speak now, the moment will be gone, and he won't be able to revisit the topic on a whim later. From the chaos, he pulls the question, "Are you happy, too?", and blurts it out too loudly. He feels his the heat rush to his face and wills it away.

Julius stops, once more in the doorway, and turns around. His smile is warm, indulgent, eyes sparkling. "Of course. I've never been happier."

**Author's Note:**

> more specific warnings, for those who did not read yet: Ludger hallucinates Julius/to some extent believes he never died. No one handles this particularly smoothly, and the matter is not resolved or even directly addressed with Ludger within the fic. this fic is ultimately gen, so it's safe for Kresnikcest naysayers, but even if you don't ship them romantically, Ludger and Julius are still pretty... well... [/glances at bad end]... over the top. if you're not prepared for codependence, perhaps this is not the fic for you. shippers can and may, of course, interpret this as 'at least' one-sided Kresnikcest
> 
> now, a wall of my own commentary, because I have only myself to talk to about these things:
> 
> Ludger is not a particularly stable man. if u want specific examples: canon Ludger end (shut down, seemingly relying 190% on Lara being his One Chance at Happiness now that he's lost the people he loved most, Friends? What Friends?); Julius end (u ever just. find it so impossible to consider losing your bro that you. you know. slaughter all your friends and damn the world to a tyrant's poor management skills and/or a slow painful death); Victor. even indirectly, it's in Ludger's blood, with Bisley and Claudia (we don't know much about Cornelia, but Julius got enough from Bisley's side of the family anyway...). there are more if you look for them, but those are already a Lot. 
> 
> I didn't make the trend. I'm just following it. I love it. also I'm dying. this fic was born from that.
> 
> if Ludger is so torn up about losing Julius and Elle, why is he only seeing Julius? well. Ludger loves Elle dearly, and obviously in the true end does everything he can to save her. but he still only knew her for less than a year. he lived with Julius his whole life. Julius was his norm. in this particular world, the details of losing Elle are probably very, very fuzzy to him- as are the details of much that happened in Marksburg, how they got to Canaan, etc. while he only keeps Julius around, he- his brain- can fudge all the details necessary to sustaining the illusion. if he keeps an 8 y/o girl around- a very loud, outspoken, fairly social girl- along with his brother, it's going to be harder for him to reconcile all the red flags that arise from him acting like they're still around when no one else seems to notice, or when someone actually decides to say something about it. if he had kept Elle, and not Julius at all, the effect would be similar. it's a little more concerning to others, too, to see someone acting like an invisible child is with them every now and again, and easier to miss interactions with the ghost of a man who needs time to think, time to himself. Ludger has been put through the wringer since the day he got on that train. only remembering Julius is perhaps the path of least resistance; whether this is healthy or not, it keeps him mostly happy and dubiously stable.
> 
> part of him likely understands that Julius isn't there at all. if you like, you can argue that all of him does. but it's much easier believing the lie/pretending, for now. later? potentially very bad things will happen. again. maybe part of him knows it's coming. maybe he's fooled himself completely. I leave it to you to decide these details.
> 
> furthermore, I hurt myself with the knowledge that every revelation Ludger has with Julius, and all the fine details about how Julius acts... all come from Ludger's brain :' D he's grown up watching his brother, wanting to be like him. even though Julius hid a great deal of his life from him, in many ways I think Ludger still knew him better than anyone else. he learned a lot more in a few months- more than he was consciously aware of, probably, and so now he's getting those things in order. details about their family history are not clearly given in-game, but there are enough hints that you might put it together anyway; and so has Ludger, though with additional post-game help. I... could go on about this but no one asked and if I don't stop myself now I won't stop ever
> 
> yes, it's supposed to end there. a reader expressed confusion to me about how open the ending is, like I stopped writing in the middle of the story and forgot to continue it ww. despite my skepticism re: canon Ludger end, this fic does not exclude it from possibility. the ending is whatever you want it to be :' D happy, sad, in between. 
> 
> re: the spyrites: I took liberties, not many of them scientific, but. tiny glowing spirit ferrets. i want one
> 
> I have made a series of edits/revisions, and will seemingly continue to do so throughout this piece's life on the internet. I apologize, from the bottom of my heart, and beg your forgiveness if you read this in one of its earlier incarnations. hmu if you see any lingering errors/bad or confusing wording/etc.
> 
> here's the ToX/2 Discord server. Invite your friends. https://discord.gg/39VsfnH


End file.
